


Our Home

by enigmaticdr



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Massage, Pillow Talk, Unremarkable house, post-this, s11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-10 21:03:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13509729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enigmaticdr/pseuds/enigmaticdr
Summary: Post-This. Mulder and Scully take the morning off to recover. Lazytimes in bed.





	Our Home

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place the morning after This.

Scully stands at the kitchen window in her pyjamas, a mug of warm coffee cupped between her palms as she looks out across their property, at the tall oak trees, at the narrow beaten path disappearing into them. **  
**

This morning there’s a lurid sunrise, the world taking its time to wake up. The season is turning on its hinges, the earth swinging further from the light, intimations of the winter solstice. Outside the window, there is snow. That kissing sound against the glass. Little flurries. It will melt off because it’s only November, but it’s a foretaste nonetheless. A chickadee perches on the birdfeeder.

She is quieting after the rush of yesterday. The house is still an absolute disaster, and there’s a chill from the front door where the handle hangs slightly loose, broken. But she feels a renewed sense of peace, like the first little green sprout after a forest fire.

When she wanders back to their bedroom with her glasses perched on her head and a home decor magazine, Mulder wraps an arm around her thighs and tugs, pestering her to come back and join him under the covers. She surrenders without much fuss, sliding across the chilly furrows and craters of the mattress to curl against his side. His body is solid everywhere. Even his neck has dips and valleys now, pulsing cords of veins. He is so alive. His warm skin reassures her that he is unnaturally resilient, that he clings to life. Fists, even bullets and knives, don’t stand a chance against him.

She can feel his arousal against her, but after all these years together it’s a comfort instead of an urgent thing, and he too seems content to just hold her. She sinks into him, and he takes her weight, his big hand splayed across her stomach.

The clock ticks. The old bones of the house settle with soft creaks and pops in the walls and the heater sighs. His breathing is steady and slow against her as the sun streams in crystal white through the curtains.

He makes her drowsy.

She wonders if everyone feels like this. Maybe this is the thing that people spend their whole life seeking, searching for. This love. It’s a gentle, quiet thing – a respite from the world that turns all around her.

“Morning,” Mulder finally murmurs against her hair.

She wriggles around to face him. “How’s your back doing?”

He shifts his shoulders experimentally and winces. “Terrible,” he groans. “I’m  _old_ , Scully.” 

She shushes him, patting his belly. 

“Check this one out,” he adds, holding up his arm. An angry purple bruise has bloomed on the inside of his forearm.  

“My hero,” she sympathizes teasingly, trailing her hand up the centre line of his body and across his chest to push at his shoulder. “Come on. Roll over.”

He opens one eye, sizing her up. “I’m sore,” he warns, as he turns over, settling himself onto his stomach, “out of commission.” Scully laughs and pulls the comforter down to his calves.

He inhales through his teeth. “ _Cold_ , Scully,” he groans, but then shuts up as she clambers on, slipping a knee over his hip and settling herself to sit astride him, knees bracketing his rib cage.

“Are you seriously complaining right now?” she asks, sitting back so her weight settles on his ass. He’s so thick, these days, and she takes the time to properly admire the breadth of him beneath her.

“Mmmm. No, ma’am,” he assures her, turning his head to the side on the pillow and closing his eyes, his long eyelashes dusting his cheeks. He wiggles his hips beneath her. “Do your worst.”

Scully pushes up his sleep shirt and pulls it gently over his head. His back is a Picasso of black and blue, and little red welts. She makes a soft sound in the back of her throat.

She leans over him to open his bedside drawer, rooting past the tangled mess of his headphones and notebooks for the little bottle of oil. Finding it, she squirts some into her palm and rubs her hands together to warm it up.

When she passes her hands firmly up his spine and out across his shoulders, Mulder groans loudly on an exhale.

“Hurts?” she asks, backing off a little.

“No,” he answers, his voice partially muffled by the pillow. “Feels good. Don’t stop.”

She pushes her thumbs into the corded muscles of his neck. He’s so tight, here. She can feel the knots crunching. “Like that?”

“Mmmm.”

She focuses, putting her weight into it. Works him between her palms, until she feels him loosen beneath her. Handles him like she’s kneading warm bread, mapping him like a cartographer. She knows what he looks like under his skin.

When her thumbs get tired she bends over to press against him, kissing the sparse freckles and scattered bruises. He murmurs appreciatively at the feel of her full breasts against his back. After a moment’s rest she crawls off, and he spoons up behind her, his hand slipping beneath her shirt, forearm coming to rest between her breasts.

“Want me to return the favor?” he asks, moving to cup the teardrop curve of her breast in his palm. His nose is buried in her hair like a dog searching for truffles in dirt.

“Furniture’s being delivered at three,” she sighs, half reluctant. “We need to start cleaning up.”

“Mmm. Take this off?” he requests, tugging at the hem of her shirt.

“Mulder…” but she raises her arms accommodatingly so he can slip the cotton up and off, slides her fingers appreciatively into his hair when he leans down to nuzzle her.

In this man, she thinks, she has found everything - friend, lover, ally, and partner. Her life would hold massive empty spaces without him, she knows this more surely now than ever. The force and passion in his life has carried hers, and she doesn’t resent that anymore.

Scully burrows further into him, and in the last moment before she drifts back into a lazy late-morning sleep, she is grateful for the parts of their past that somehow, in the end, have brought them here.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!


End file.
